Identifying food behavior profiles among adult US cancer survivors: a latent class analysis.

Purpose: This study sought to identify subgroups of adult cancer survivors with distinct food behavior patterns and to examine group characteristics.

Methods: Data from adult cancer survivors, ages 20-64, in the 2007-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was used to conduct latent class analyses to identify food behavior subgroups, based on five indicator variables. Associations between latent food behavior class membership and key sociodemographic and cancer-related characteristics were examined using adjusted multinomial regression models.

Mitochondrial Functioning: Front and Center in Defining Psychosomatic Mechanisms of Allostasis in Health and Disease.

There is increased awareness among basic and clinical scientists that psychological and social stress can have detrimental effects on physical, cognitive, and mental health. Data have been published indicating that social, economic, psychological, and physical environmental stress can influence behavior that has biological and physiological consequences-yet there are major gaps in understanding the physiological and cellular processes that drive increased morbidity and mortality. The potential role of mitochondria has been highlighted in psychosomatic medicine, as their functionality in various biological and physiological processes has earned recognition.

A Pilot Study Examining Stress and Obesity among Employees at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU): Does Job Satisfaction Matter?

Objective: To evaluate the potential of using specific biopsychosocial instruments in capturing data on the relationship between stress and obesity and determine if job satisfaction influences the effect estimate.

Participants: Fifty-three Black employees at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

Methods: Logistic regression analyses were used to determine associations.

Racial Differences in the Association Between Loneliness and Cognitive Impairment Among Older Black and White Men.

Background: Loneliness is a biopsychosocial stressor linked to poor health outcomes including dementia. Few studies have focused on this association among men and even fewer have examined racial disparities in loneliness and cognitive functioning among this group. The purpose of this study was to examine racial differences in the association between loneliness and cognitive functioning among men in the 2016 wave of the Health and Retirement Study.

Associations between Structural Racism, Environmental Burden, and Cancer Rates: An Ecological Study of US Counties.

Objective: In this study, we examined associations between county-level measures of structural racism and county-level cancer incidence and mortality rates between race groups while accounting for factors associated with cancer rates and county-level measures of environmental burden.

Methods: To explore this relationship, we conducted multiple linear regression analyses. Data for these analyses came from an index of county-level structural racism and publicly available data on 2015 to 2019 age-adjusted cancer rates from the US Cancer Statistics Data Visualization Tool, 2019 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, the Environmental Protection Agency's 2006 to 2010 Environmental Quality Index, and 2015 to 2019 estimates from the US Census American Community Survey.

Psychometric Validation of the Connectedness to the LGBT Community Scale among Black Sexual Minority Men Living with HIV.

Purpose: LGBTQ + community connectedness is generally a protective health factor for sexual and gender minorities. However, existing scales have not been validated among Black sexual minority men living with HIV (SMMLWH), who face unique marginalized experiences that disproportionately impact several health outcomes compared to the general LGBT + community. We validated the Connectedness to the LGBT Community Scale among Black SMMLWH.

Social cohesion as a modifier of joint air pollution exposure and incident dementia.

Social cohesion can reduce stress, increase social interaction, and improve cognitive reserve. These social mechanisms may modify the effects of air pollution on dementia risk. This cohort study examines the potential moderating effect of social cohesion on associations between joint air pollution exposure and incident dementia leveraging data from 5112 community-dwelling adults ≥65 years of age enrolled in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS).

Influence of Diet on Reproducible Corticosterone Levels in a Mouse Model of Maternal Separation with Early Weaning.

Maternal separation with early weaning (MSEW) is a popular early life stress (ELS) model in rodents, which emulates childhood neglect through scheduled mother-offspring separation. Although variations of ELS models, including maternal separation and MSEW, have been published for the mouse species, the reported results are inconsistent. Corticosterone is considered the main stress hormone involved in regulating stress responses in rodents-yet generating a robust and reproducible corticosterone response in mouse models of ELS has been elusive.

Social support moderates association between area deprivation index and changes in physical health among adults in the Baltimore Study of Black Aging (BSBA).

Despite the association of neighborhood quality with poorer adult health, limited research has explored the association between neighborhood disadvantage, e.g. Area Deprivation Index (ADI), and older Black adults' health, prospectively.

An exploration of neighborhood characteristics, psychosocial resilience resources, and cognitive functioning among midlife and older black adults.

Objectives: While existing research has shown that Black adults have worse cognitive functioning than their White counterparts, the psychosocial correlates of cognitive functioning for Black older adults are understudied. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships among perceived neighborhood characteristics, psychosocial resilience resources, and cognitive functioning among midlife and older Black adults.

Methods: Data were from 3,191 Black adults ages 51+ in the 2008-2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to examine associations among neighborhood characteristics, psychosocial resilience (sense of purpose, mastery, and social support), and cognitive functioning among Black adults.

Increasing Access to Cardiac Rehabilitation Services Among Disadvantaged Populations.

The Prince George's County Health Department encountered several challenges to increasing access to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) services among disadvantaged populations. They include excessive patient out-of-pocket costs; requirements that CR orders must be signed by a physician; provider reluctance to refer patients to CR, with most primary care providers preferring to refer clients to cardiologists for the latter to determine whether the patient needs CR referral; limited availability of CR programs; and difficulty identifying patients eligible for CR services. Discussions with other local health departments and public health practitioners indicate that these challenges are not unique to Maryland but are indicative of policy and system barriers that prevent the optimal delivery of cardiovascular health services.

Racial Disparities in Health Care Use in Gentrifying Neighborhoods.

Objective: Racial disparities in health outcomes are a persistent threat in gentrifying neighborhoods. A contributor to health outcomes is health services utilization, the extent to which people receive care from a medical professional. There are documented racial disparities in health services utilization in the general population.

Concussion burden and later-life cardiovascular risk factors in former professional American-style football players.

Objective: Mid-life cardiovascular risk factors are associated with later cognitive decline. Whether repetitive head injury among professional athletes impacts cardiovascular risk is unknown. We investigated associations between concussion burden and postcareer hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes among former professional American-style football (ASF) players.

Income Inequality, Gender Disparities, and Ethnic Differences: Investigating Allostatic Load in American Adults.

Aim: To estimate the association between income inequality and allostatic load score (AL) in adults ages 20 years and older, with a particular focus on the differential impacts across racial and gender groups. By examining this association, the study seeks to inform targeted policy interventions to mitigate health disparities exacerbated by economic inequality.

Methods: Utilizing data from the 1999-2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we assessed AL through eight biomarkers: systolic blood pressure (mm Hg), diastolic blood pressure (mm Hg), pulse rate (beats/min), body mass index (kg/m), glycohemoglobin (%), direct HDL cholesterol (mg/dL), total cholesterol (mg/dL), and serum albumin (g/dL).

Structural Racism as a Contributor to Lung Cancer Incidence and Mortality Rates Among Black Populations in the United States.

Background: Although racial disparities in lung cancer incidence and mortality have diminished in recent years, lung cancer remains the second most diagnosed cancer among US Black populations. Many factors contributing to disparities in lung cancer are rooted in structural racism. To quantify this relationship, we examined associations between a multidimensional measure of county-level structural racism and county lung cancer incidence and mortality rates among Black populations, while accounting for county levels of environmental quality.

The Association of Oncology Provider Density With Black-White Disparities in Cancer Mortality in US Counties.

Background: Black-White racial disparities in cancer mortality are well-documented in the US. Given the estimated shortage of oncologists over the next decade, understanding how access to oncology care might influence cancer disparities is of considerable importance. We aim to examine the association between oncology provider density in a county and Black-White cancer mortality disparities.

Links of Previous Incarceration With Geriatric Syndromes and Chronic Health Conditions Among Older Adults in the United States.

Background: This study investigated the association between previous incarceration and various geriatric and chronic health conditions among adults 50 and older in the United States.

Methods: Data came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health-Parent Study (AHPS) collected in 2015-2017, including 2 007 individuals who participated in the parent study (Parent Sample) and 976 individuals who participated in the spouse/partner study (Spouse/Partner Sample). Multiple logistic regression was used to investigate the relationship between previous incarceration and geriatric syndromes (dementia, difficulty walking, difficulty seeing, difficulty with activities of daily living) and chronic health conditions (self-reported poor/fair health, diagnosis of cancer, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, chronic lung disease, depression, and alcohol use [4 or more drinks per week]).

Risk of dementia due to Co-exposure to air pollution and neighborhood disadvantage.

Background: Co-exposure to air pollution and neighborhood disadvantage may influence cognition decline. We tested these associations in the context of dementia risk.

Methods: We leveraged a cohort of adults ≥65 years (n = 5397) enrolled from 2011 to 2018 in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS).

Agreement in extreme precipitation exposure assessment is modified by race and social vulnerability.

Epidemiologic investigations of extreme precipitation events (EPEs) often rely on observations from the nearest weather station to represent individuals' exposures, and due to structural factors that determine the siting of weather stations, levels of measurement error and misclassification bias may differ by race, class, and other measures of social vulnerability. Gridded climate datasets provide higher spatial resolution that may improve measurement error and misclassification bias. However, similarities in the ability to identify EPEs among these types of datasets have not been explored.

Caregiving and Obesity among Black American Adults.

Black American adults often report higher rates of obesity and caregiving compared with other racial or ethnic groups. Consequently, many Black American caregivers and care recipients are obese or have obesity-related chronic conditions (e.g.

Adherence to the healthy eating index-2010 and alternative healthy eating index-2010 in relation to metabolic syndrome among African Americans in the Jackson heart study.

Objective: The primary objective of this study was to determine whether Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) scores were associated with incident metabolic syndrome.

Design: This study is a secondary analysis of data from the Jackson Heart Study. HEI and AHEI scores were divided into quintiles and Cox proportional hazards regression models were analysed for 1864 African American adults free from metabolic syndrome at Exam 1 to examine the incidence of metabolic syndrome by quintile of dietary quality score.

Ours to eat and own: assessing the feasibility of a cooperative meal-kit service to improve food access.

Objective: Although typically serving higher income and younger demographic groups, meal-kit subscription services have the potential to improve food availability and dietary quality in communities experiencing low food access due to systemic discrimination. This study describes the development and characteristics of a pilot community-led meal-kit service (SouthEats) and evaluates key implementation outcomes of adoption, acceptability, and feasibility among households experiencing less income.

Design: We utilised a mixed methods study design, including data from administrative records, customer surveys and worker interviews.

The ACTIVE Study: Association of Race and Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) with Long-Term Outcomes and Cognitive Training Effects.

The purpose of this article is to introduce a special issue on the ACTIVE project examining the association between race and social determinants of health (SDoH) and long-term participant outcomes and training effectiveness for older Black/African Americans and Whites in the ACTIVE (for Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly) Trial on cognitive abilities, everyday functioning, and incidence of dementia. The ACTIVE study is the largest randomized clinical trial ( = 2802) of the efficacy of three types of cognitive training (memory, reasoning, speed of processing) in improving cognitive and everyday functioning in normal older adults, with follow-ups extending through 5 and 10 years post-intervention. We provide background and context for studying the multiple domains of SDoH in understanding long-term participant outcomes in the ACTIVE trial and racial disparities in the efficacy of cognitive training and summarize the 11 articles in this special issue.